British save all 7 on sub / Cables had snared Russian vessel -- air was running out

Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, August 7, 2005

Photo: IVAN SEKRETAREV

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U.S. military personal unload a power generator from the USAF C-5 transport plane at the airport in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia Saturday, Aug. 6, 2005. The C-5 brought the Super Scorpio underwater robotic vehicle intended to help rescue the seven-man crew of a Russian mini-submarine trapped on the seabed off Kamchatka since Thursday. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev) less

U.S. military personal unload a power generator from the USAF C-5 transport plane at the airport in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia Saturday, Aug. 6, 2005. The C-5 brought the Super Scorpio underwater robotic ... more

Photo: IVAN SEKRETAREV

British save all 7 on sub / Cables had snared Russian vessel -- air was running out

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2005-08-07 04:00:00 PDT St. Petersburg, Russia -- The seven Russian sailors trapped aboard a small, dark, cold submarine on the Pacific floor were rescued today after a British remote- controlled vehicle cut away the undersea cables that had ensnared their vessel.

British crews, who arrived while U.S. rescue crews were still en route to the remote Kamchatka Peninsula site, maneuvered their Super Scorpio unmanned robotic vehicle from the surface of the sea and managed to untangle the Russian Priz AS-28, Russian news agencies reported.

"The mini-sub has surfaced, and all seven crew members are alive," Russian Pacific Fleet spokesman Igor Dygalo announced after the rescue was completed. "They left the mini-sub unassisted and boarded the rescue boat, which will take them to the ship Alages where medical help is ready."

Officials said the crew members were able to open the submarine hatch by themselves.

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"I would like to thank our British colleagues for their aid in saving the crew," Rear Adm. Vladimir Pepelyayev, deputy head of the Russian navy's headquarters, told reporters shortly after the rescue. "The crew are in the hospital on the Alages ship. After reaching Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in about five hours, they will be taken to a hospital and thoroughly examined."

The American crew, which left from Southern California in a military plane Friday, did not participate in bringing the Russian vessel to the surface.

Before the sub surfaced at 4:26 p.m. local time, the rescue effort had seen hopes rise and fall.

By midmorning, the British Scorpio -- which had been flown to Kamchatka and taken by ship to the site 10 miles offshore -- was able to dive toward the mini-sub. At midafternoon, it was reported that the Scorpio had nearly succeeded in freeing the vessel, with all metal cables cut loose and only some ropes from old fishing nets remaining to be cleared away.

Then, however, the Scorpio was forced to surface, its task incomplete, to deal with what was described by officials as some kind of damage or malfunction.

After a short delay, the Scorpio dived again and was able to fully free the Russian vessel by cutting away two hoses and a steel cable.

Russia had formally requested help on Friday from both Britain and the United States, and Cmdr. Bill Hamblet, an assistant U.S. naval attache helping the operation, had said earlier that the three countries were cooperating with their best equipment and teams.

A dozen Russian ships had already congregated to be on hand for rescue operations in Beryozovaya Bay. Japanese ships also sailed to the rescue area.

On Saturday, after nearly two days of trying unsuccessfully to rescue the submarine, Russian navy crews had managed to loop cables under the mini- submarine, which had been snared since Thursday morning 625 feet below sea level -- too deep for the sailors to survive in the water or for divers to reach them.

The 44-foot-long vessel's propeller apparently had become entangled in fishing gear, and its hull got caught on an underwater antenna held down by two 30-ton concrete anchors during a military exercise in Russia's Far East. After the British rescue vehicle sliced through the entanglements, the sub was brought to the surface and the crew released from their cramped quarters.

Russian officials described the antenna as part of a coastal monitoring system used to track the movements of foreign submarines.

Adm. Viktor Fyodorov, Russia's Pacific Fleet commander, had said on Saturday the air supply would allow the crew to survive until 2 p.m. Monday. This contradicted earlier statements that the sailors had enough air to last them only until midday Saturday.

To conserve energy and precious oxygen before they were rescued, the sailors had shut down most of the power inside the sunken submarine and turned off its heater. They had donned thermal suits and minimized their movements to conserve their dwindling oxygen supply.

The accident and the drawn-out rescue operation showed that faulty equipment and a lack of specialists in the Russian navy -- once the world's largest -- made it ill-prepared to carry out rescue operations, experts said.

"The Russians don't know what they're doing when it comes to a lot of the technology they have," said Charles Digges, an expert on the Russian navy at the Norwegian environmental group Bellona. "I hate to speak about it so cavalierly, but it's just horrible. They'll never learn. They don't have the technology to rescue their own vessel."

President Vladimir Putin had promised to improve the navy's equipment after another Priz AS-28 deep-sea rescue vessel failed to save the crew aboard the Kursk nuclear submarine, which sank after an explosion ripped its hull in 2000. All of its 118 crew were killed.

But five years later, the cash-strapped Russian navy apparently still has no deep-sea rescue vehicles. Putin never addressed the public on the sub's fate while it was submerged but, in a sign of growing Kremlin concern, sent Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov to Kamchatka to take charge of the rescue operation.

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